02 February, 2012

An Open Letter to Pastor Daniel Hamlin

I just e-mailed the following letter to Pastor Hamlin, at pastor@greenbeltucc.org, with a cc: to the Miss Greenbelt Pageant organizers, at natasha@missgreenbelt.com, christine@missgreenbelt.com (they list no other contact information on their web site, at http://www.missgreenbelt.com/ )

* * *Dear Pastor Hamlin:

I write to you because you are listed as a supporter of the Miss Greenbelt Pageants. As a church and religious organization with clear pro-marriage equality stances, I would like to know why you are supporting this clearly anti-LGBT organization and one of its start spokespersons, Little Miss Greenbelt, Sarah Crank.

A few days ago, 14-year old Little Miss Greenbelt, Sarah Crank, who is home-schooled by her very anti-LGBTQ Concerned Women for America lobbyist mother, told the Maryland state legislature, and I quote, "It would be the best birthday present ever if you would vote no on gay marriage." and "People have the choice to be gay, but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.", as well as " I don't want any more kids to get confused about what's right and OK."

Sarah's mother, who serves as her sole educational resource and life coach, has been lighting up the blogosphere trolling articles which have reported about this travesty of child abuse, proudly proclaiming her daughter's pageant title.

I would like to know why you, as a supportive and pro-LGBT church and religion, are sponsoring this expulsion of hatred.

I ask that you immediately withdraw your sponsorship of the Miss Greenbelt pageant and condemn the words, intent, attitude, meaning, and sentiment of the hatred espoused by Miss and Mrs. Crank. If you do not do so, I would be happy to bring your support of this hate-spewing, homophobic organization and its spokespersons to the Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I do hope that you will do the right thing and continue to spread and share the joy and love of Jesus Christ, instead of supporting and promoting the ignorance and hatred that those such as the Miss Greenbelt Pageant and their spokesperson, Sarah Crank, choose to falsely ascribe to the teachings of love from Jesus Christ and God.

31 January, 2012

A Decade in Review; A Life in the New (or, Peter's Pretentious Prattle)

It is with a sense of tearful melancholic irony that I look back upon the past few decades of my life and examine what was in a futile attempt to determine what will come to be.

Two decades ago from today, I was breezing through the first year of my studies at university, even while carrying a work load of 24 or 26 credits per semester. In fact, I already had become a sophomore, credit-wise, even though it was my first year of "higher learning."

My problem was that I found little difference in the teaching methods between my secondary school teachers and the professors at my university of higher learning. The fault was not with the professors' profferings but rather the unparalleled acerbic academics of my secondary school teachers—something which, quite unfortunately in today's banal society, one finds less often than the chances by which one can be struck by lightning.

Exactly ten years ago today, I should have died; I did not do so. Instead, I have found renewed purpose—perhaps even a sense of hope among all the doom and gloom of my intellectual pursuits.

Perhaps it is done in order to satiate the human brain's need of order within all the chaotic flotsam and jetsam contained within the data rhythms of sensory input that we humans are able to "pinpoint" pivotal moments in our lives, upon which have launched tributaries of change in the linear graph we humans call, simply, "life."

Or, perhaps it is just that our pre-programmed pragmatic neural pathways are otherwise incapable of such abstract realities that we seize upon certain moments in "time" instead of allowing ourselves the meek luxury of enjoying the sojourn through inter-cosmic strands of Silly-String tying our eternal Oneness together.

Whatever the case may be, I once was alive--very, very alive--then almost died. And in fighting for and attempting to reclaim some of that prior life, I've come to that aged revelation of just how little of "life" (or what we consider to be life) is, in fact, being alive. Most of it is the muck and dreck "society" lays upon our bereaved shoulders.

There is but one thing I have discovered that remains real, alive, and unchanged throughout the myriad morphings of societies' demands: LOVE.

It is Love, the universal and eternal source of energy, that has allowed me to remain calm in the face of inter-familial squabbles and deflect the hatred lashed out at me, responding instead with pity—not the very same hated fired upon me in misguided outrage all in the name of one's so-called "religion." I discovered an ability to absorb negative energy and convert it into a more positive form of energy.

It is Love, the universal and eternal source of energy, that has exposed one very important purpose I can serve here while in this space, in this very vessel of being. I always have been politically involved in my "adult" life, serving as advocate for those unable to do so themselves. In fact, my "chosen career path"—that of the attorney—is dedicated to this noblest of noble ideals.

It is Love, the universal and eternal source of energy, that has given me a sense of hope for a future—the mere fact that there can be a future. Love of the within and the without, the internal and the external, the subordinate subservient versus the domineering predominant.

Indeed, when reading earlier of the passing on of the noblesse that was Camilla Williams into the eternal expanse of energy, I became, at first, enraged with its placement in the "Entertainment" section instead of front-page news. That anger subsided as I was filled with the Love that was her life in all respects and aspects: how silently she battled the hatred and negative energies of society with tear-evoking, theme-filled magically melodious music created from the Love within her and how society changed as a result.

The minutiae of life's little details obscure and preoccupy most with their reckless requirements. Taking a trip to death's door and back, I am left with but one universal truth:

Love thy self, and everything will fall into place. Or, to simply put it in other words,